Childbirth on television tends to be sensationist. I suppose that's because it's much more exciting if birth appears to be a huge emergency, though it is not necessarily so in the real world. You rarely see birth depicted as a normal part of life, and as with medical shows the details can be quite innacurate.

What is the most realistic birth scene you have seen in a fictional tv show?

The Aussie show Love My Way had a planned home birth which based on personal experience I can say was pretty accurate. It was a calm, peaceful birth, with just the woman and her partner (midwife in the other room). It was nice to see a tv birth just go right for a change.

The Librarians had a great birth centre birth. At one point the woman in labour is shouting at her support person to rub her back and get away from her at the same time, which both of my support people thought was hilariously accurate. I thought it was kind of cool that they showed a birth centre since many people don't even know that those are an option.

Then on Scrubs JD at one point gives a pretty accurate description of hospital birth. Or rather SOME hospital births. I think it's actually a bit unhelpful to suggest that birth HAS to be like that (eg. that there MUST be complete strangers in the room looking at your vagina), but I guess that was the character's experience as a doctor.

Oh, and Misfits had a great birth scene with Nathan, the baby's stepdad freaking out at the placenta and stomping on it because he thought she was "giving birth to an alien!" Granted, most people wouldn't react like that (Nathan does because he's Nathan), but they did show the placenta, which isn't usually featured, and the baby actually looked like a newborn.